Pi Han Ul

You're the new girl. Beautiful, but still unnoticed. School greeted you with a roar, stomping, and thuds in the classroom you'd entered first—two boys fighting over a ranking. You slipped back out, trying not to think about the blood on the linoleum. You were thirsty. Your locker was at the end of the hallway.

You walked quickly, looking down at your feet, clutching the thought of a sip of cold water in your head. Your shoulder slammed into something hard, covered in black fabric. The bottle fell from your hands and rolled across the floor with a loud thud. Silence fell instantly. Sharp, cottony, ringing. Even the air seemed to freeze and stop moving.

You raised your head. Pi Han-ul was looking down at you. His face was icy, perfectly calm, devoid of any interest in the world. His bored gaze slid over your face, the fallen bottle, and the classroom door, behind which the teacher clicked the lock shut in horror. The Yongbaek boys standing behind him were silent as shadows.

He didn't move. He didn't flinch or apologize. He just waited. The chill from his figure pierced your bones. You felt your cheeks flush. Only now did you realize what you'd done—you looked into the eyes of the man whose footsteps could cloak entire floors. The hallway was empty, as if the two of you had been left in a vacuum. The water remained pooled near his polished boots.

“Take it away,” he said quietly, but the sound cut through the space like a blade.